“We were going to run you down the hall for a shower first anyway. I’ll let you eat in peace for now. Probably back in about a half hour to get you cleaned up.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Prange said, holding his arm up to show a clear lack of a wristwatch.
Knowing he had some time, he took his breakfast at a leisurely pace, trying on the suit for fit in between bites. Whoever had donated the clothes wore the same size in off-the-shelf menswear but had terrible taste. The suit was made of that weirdly stiff polyester that felt vaguely slimy to the touch and wouldn’t wrinkle, even after being stuffed into a plastic grocery bag. The color was about two shades too light to be called navy blue, which made it just look wrong. The shirt tried a little harder, but there was still no hiding the fact that it had probably cost less than twenty bucks.
Still, in a town like Bowman, he’d probably look like a million bucks in the getup. Especially if they eventually gave him a tie.
An hour later, he was in the school auditorium. In the thin light provided by the small, high windows in the room and some camp lanterns, he reasonably passed as a clean-cut professional. He didn’t think that mattered much, though. He knew he had no friends in the room, no supporters, no allies.
The last time he’d been here, it seemed like well more than half the people were on his side, as he turned a criminal proceeding against some rioters and price-gouging shop owners into a referendum on the mayor’s leadership. Not anymore.
Even the folks that still didn’t stand behind Tom Grossman after everything had thrown in with different camps. Prange had been locked away and kept isolated from anybody but his guards, so he didn’t know who the main opposition was anymore, which meant he couldn’t even try to play to them.
Prange still looked around the room, trying to get any hint of who people might be looking to, but he couldn’t make out faces or details beyond the first row of seats, and all of those people were focused solely on him, nothing but anger and hate in their eyes.
“Why don’t you guys skip all the pretense here and just drop a round in the back of my head?” he asked one of the deputies walking him to his seat.
“Maybe we just want to see how long we can make you squirm,” the deputy on his left said.
“Keep it professional,” the deputy on his other side replied.
Prange compared the two and guessed the one on his left was one that had been recruited after the Event, while the one on his right was probably one of the town’s original lawmen. His ribs still hurt way too much for him to think he’d have any chance of effecting an escape, even though they didn’t have him cuffed. But he figured it was still good practice to mentally play out how he might bust himself free. The man on his right had proper training, which meant he’d have to be dealt with first.
“Sit,” the right deputy said, putting just a bit of weight on Prange’s shoulder to guide him into a chair.
For the first time, Prange caught sight of Tom Grossman. It had been a few days since he’d seen the mayor. It looked like he’d been out getting some of the little bits of sun that had poked through the gray days, and his face no longer had the look of constant pain he’d been carrying before going into hiding to avoid arrest. Getting his town back seemed to have done the guy some good.
Grossman banged a gavel. “Let’s call this hearing to order. The only item of business today is the arraignment of Daniel Prange on several charges. We’ve got 946.70, impersonation of emergency personnel, multiple counts of 941.26, possession, use, and transport of fully automatic firearms, seventeen counts of 939.31, conspiracy to commit murder, related to the citizens of Bowman killed in a prolonged firefight instigated by the defendant and his co-conspirators.”
The list went on from there, but Prange tuned it out. Seventeen counts of conspiracy. He figured that would be the easiest to counter, but he still wouldn’t walk away a free man if he pulled it off. The first charge, impersonation, he knew they had him dead to rights on. He himself had created a massive paper trail of documents all signed as if he were a member of the state’s Emergency Management Task Force. That alone would keep him on ice for years, assuming they went with whatever was on the books for penalties and didn’t declare any latitude related to the emergency.
So, he knew he was going to be jailed for a very long time. The question was whether they’d use the emergency to justify capital punishment. If they did, and they got seventeen counts of conspiracy to commit murder to stick, it’d be a slam dunk.
Prange looked around the room again. The few faces he could make out all looked like they’d volunteer to take care of business if that were the ultimate verdict. He took a deep breath, and looked up toward the ceiling, where he could barely make out a bit of blue sky through one of the windows.
He knew that his fate came down to either a long time staying locked up or execution. And there was no way he was going to survive lockup for much longer with his sanity intact. “Why fight it?” he asked himself.
“Huh?” his left-side deputy asked.
“Nothing. Just talking to myself.”
“How do you plead on the charges laid against you?” Grossman asked, snapping Prange out of his thoughts.
“That’s quite a list. I’m afraid I don’t recall them all.”
“Not a problem,” Grossman said, gesturing to another deputy to deliver a piece of paper.
Prange looked at it. A nice, bulleted list written in a precise hand, enumerating all of the charges. “A pen, please?”
He went down the list, pleading guilty to several, but not guilty by reason of self-defense to the conspiracy murder. He sent the paper back to Grossman, who read down the line.
“May I ask why you claim self-defense?” the mayor asked, which prompted a rush of outrage from the audience in the room.
“I had dispatched men to make a third attempt to arrest you, and they were fired upon. The ‘prolonged firefight,’ as you call it, was started by you, and my associates suddenly found themselves fighting for their lives. Any loss of life among the citizens of the town is a direct result of your attack on us.”
It took Grossman quite a while to quiet the room. When the last of the obscenities and insults died down, he said, “Very well. We’ll enter that plea and you will remain in custody for three days, at which point we will start your trial on the conspiracy murder charges.”
“Fair enough, as long as you can get me representation and access to witnesses.”
“Miss Berkman here has agreed to represent you. She is not a trained lawyer, but then neither is the prosecution. Due to the State of Emergency, we’re suspending bar requirements all around for criminal proceedings within the town limits.”
“And if I don’t want Cathy here as my not-lawyer?”
“She’s the one the court has appointed,” Grossman said. “Your other option is to defend yourself.”
Prange considered the offer. He’d worked with the woman while he was in charge of the town, and he respected her. The woman was fastidious and detailed, and seemed to value fairness very highly. If she had any fault, it was the same one Grossman had, which was some sort of magical belief that if she treated others fairly and with respect, they’d reciprocate. She was a hard negotiator, but ultimately, didn’t ever try to use legal or administrative power to make somebody do something they didn’t want to do.
That softness seemed a bad quality in a criminal-defense lawyer, but she was also the only person in town he’d dealt with that he felt would help him put up an honest defense, instead of merely phoning it in or outright sabotaging it.
He still wasn’t sure why he was bothering to fight against the charges, except maybe a sense that it would make things interesting for a little while. “I’ll accept,” he said. “And my first request of my representative is to have her file for a different judge.”
Again, the room exploded in outrage, but not as bad as before.
“Why?” Berkman asked, walking over from her seat in the
audience to displace his left-side deputy.
“My defense hinges entirely on the argument that my people were attacked when going to arrest Mr. Grossman here. Therefore, he is probably the least impartial and neutral person I could possibly get for a judge.”
“Mr. Grossman?” Berkman said, opening a notebook and uncapping a pen.
“I agree and will recuse myself,” Grossman said. “I’ll draw up a list of two alternates, and would ask you to do the same. We’ll confer with you and Mr. Prange tomorrow afternoon to see if we can find a mutually acceptable option.”
Berkman looked to Prange. “Fair enough,” he said.
“Very well. This meeting is adjourned. Please see me after you’ve had an initial conference with your client,” Grossman said, then he banged his gavel.
13
As the sun got lower in the sky, Peter started to feel cold. He looked up and guessed they had maybe another hour to go before heading back to the house.
They were a good way down the hill from home, him, Larry, and Irene, with Bill tucked into the tree line keeping watch. The main highway that ran from Black River Falls into Bowman was just on the other side of a windbreak from where they were.
The work was hard, but spirits were pretty high. Chuck and Irene had found the farm field the day before when they’d gone out scouting for additional food options in the area. While they could probably last the winter on just soybeans from the property next to the house, plus game and forage, everybody would be healthier and happier with a wider variety of produce.
The field they were in fit the bill perfectly. One third of the field was potatoes, another rough third was wheat, and the remaining third was split between alfalfa and proper sweet corn. “Looks like they’re doing some sort of rotational cropping here,” Irene had said when she’d first brought the news back to the homestead. “Probably not the combo I’d go with, but they may have one or two other crops they throw in, depending on the year.”
Peter bent down to pick up his basket of corn and take it to the collection point. As he came out of the tall cornstalks and could look around the rest of the field, he could see Irene swinging a big grim-reaper scythe through the expanse of wheat. As with the soybean field by the house, she wasn’t clearing swaths of the field but making random cuts, collecting handfuls here and there to try and hide the evidence that somebody was coming down to harvest. If somebody came into the field, it would be obvious that people were working it, but they hoped that anybody just traveling past on the highway wouldn’t notice.
Larry was already at the collection point, setting down a backpack heavy with potatoes. “Been way too long since I’ve had a decent plate of hash browns,” he said, picking up one of the spuds and wiping the dirt off of it. He rolled his shoulders, trying to stretch out a bit. Peter understood exactly why. All three of the people working the field had their rifles across their backs. The weapons restricted their movement just enough to make the back-breaking labor more awkward and uncomfortable.
“This is what I’m looking forward to,” Peter said, setting his own bag down. “Throw some of these babies on the grill for dinner tonight. What do you say?”
“I’d vote for us doubling the butter ration for that,” Larry said.
“Excellent idea.”
There was a sudden clicking sound from the trees. Two rapid clicks, followed by three. Neither of the two looked at where the sound came from, but they went silent, listening.
Bill’s voice came out of the woods. “I see somebody moving through the trees at the far end. Armed.”
“Friend or foe?” Peter asked.
“Weapons at the ready. Don’t know how many there are.”
“Call her in,” Peter said.
Larry waved his arm. “Mom! You’re working too hard. Take a break.”
That was the coded signal to reassemble because of a threat.
“Okay. I see three for sure. Military camo, looks like AR-15s or M-16s.”
Larry swore.
“Let’s assume the worst,” Peter said. “You keep hidden, Bill.” The worst meant Carter or some others from whatever criminal gang they were all part of were moving back into the area. One of the first orders of business when they had gotten down to the field earlier in the day was to look for naturally defensible positions and do some quick improvements to them. “Make your way to the trailhead,” he said to Larry.
Larry started walking toward some hastily mounded earth and tree limbs right where the game trail leading up toward the house was. Irene pivoted to meet up with her son, trying not to be obvious she was stepping it up.
“You two will provide cover for Bill and me to make the first step up the hill,” Peter said, moving toward another position, just a few feet to the side of Bill’s sniper nest. He glanced over and saw his buddy peering through the scope on his hunting rifle.
“If it is Carter’s folk, I don’t know why they’re still trying to keep up the act,” Bill said. “Still wearing Army uniforms and using old rifles with iron sights.”
“Maybe it gives them more ability to move around everywhere else,” Peter said. He was relieved to hear that Bill didn’t see anybody with a rifle that had longer range and a scope. It gave his team an advantage for the time being.
The thought did cross his mind that the other team might have snipers that Bill hadn’t seen yet. That made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
“Might be at least one more,” Bill said. “Can’t tell for sure.”
Peter looked over toward Larry and Irene. They were just about to drop into position. Once they were set, he was going to give the signal.
Shots from his left blew that plan right out of the water. They were coming from the roadside windbreak, just over two hundred feet away.
Peter threw himself into his impromptu fighting position and shouted, “We’re getting flanked!” He heard Bill pivot as bullets started crackling overhead and smacking into the trees. The folks across the field Bill had been tracking started firing, bringing rounds in from a second direction.
He had enough cover that he was able to take a few seconds to get his bearings. He could hear Larry, Irene, and Bill all returning fire, and it seemed they were being disciplined about their ammunition usage. Unfortunately, the flankers seemed to have a direct line on the game trail he wanted to use as an evacuation route.
“Escape’s cut off,” Bill said, reinforcing Peter’s assessment of the situation.
“Larry, Irene, you two keep pressure on the far side of the field. Bill, let’s see if we can cut down the guys coming in from the highway.”
Peter ignored a stab of pain from the healing wound in his right thigh as he shifted into a good firing position. He couldn’t see any of his targets directly but did catch a quick burst of muzzle flashes. He did notice that after the first big volley, the volume of incoming fire had eased, and was coming in rhythmic bursts.
As he kept his eyes on his own field of fire, he was able to quickly peg the rhythm. One gun opened up, then a second. Another opened up near where the first one had fired, but closer…
“They’re doing basic fire and maneuver,” Peter said.
“Yep!” Larry replied.
“Remember the plan. One plays pick-off, one suppresses,” Peter said.
“I’ve got too much obstruction from here to pick,” Bill said.
Peter glanced over quickly. The lay of the land where Bill was set up had him back into the tree line, and there was a stripe of saplings and taller bushes that were growing up where a fallen tree had left a hole in the overhead shade. “Do what you can to suppress, then.”
“We going to try to whittle ’em down instead of pulling back?” Bill asked.
Bullets were still going overhead, and Peter could hear them hitting dirt and wood from the area of their egress route. “Game trail’s too risky. You got a line on an alternate?”
“Checking,” Bill said.
“We’ve got four,” Larry said between shot
s. “Two teams.”
Knowing Bill was distracted for a bit, Peter held off on targeting and concentrated on throwing some harassment rounds downrange in the general direction of where he heard gunshots coming from.
“I might have something,” Bill said. “If we can slow them down a bit, literally walk across my back. There’s some good rock and trees on a reasonable slope uphill from me.”
A round ricocheted off a tree right in front of Peter, sending shards of wood flying at his face. He jerked to the side as a splinter got into his right eye, the one he aimed with. His first instinct was to wipe his sleeve across his face, but he stopped himself, knowing he’d just make things worse if he ended up grinding the splinter in deeper. Instead, he forced himself to keep his eyes open and let tears do their work.
All the while, he knew he was burning valuable time, as the walking gunshots came closer.
“You gotten a good line yet?” Bill asked.
Peter couldn’t wait any longer. He used the back of his thumb to gently wipe at the water flowing from his right eye and blinked a couple of times. His vision cleared, and he was able to look through his scope again, instead of aiming at sound.
“Score! One down,” Irene said behind him, keeping her voice quiet while still letting a triumphant note into it.
“Great,” Peter said, sweeping his scope across the area he’d last heard shots come from. When the second gun in the team opened up, he held steady, resisting the urge to shift his focus. He was rewarded by the sight of somebody sprinting to another tree. He willed himself closer to the ground as he held his sight picture on the tree instead of tracking to the next burst of fire.
Age of Survival Series | Book 3 | Age of Revival Page 8